


Loyal to a Fault

by Rederra



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-03-15
Updated: 2020-09-17
Packaged: 2021-02-28 21:34:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 21,828
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23154106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rederra/pseuds/Rederra
Summary: Eleanor is back for her sixth year at Hogwarts, with her newly formed friendship and the increasing demands and power of Voldemort she must navigate school with all its challenges as she discovers just how far she is willing to go to protect the ones she loves and how important friendship and loyalty will be in the war that is coming.
Comments: 7
Kudos: 1





	1. Chapter 1

Eleanor glanced up from the newspaper in her hand that detailed the collapse of the bridge only yesterday, doing her best to cover the pictures that were moving about. The fact it was being reported in the Daily Prophet confirmed that it had indeed been a death eater attack and not poor construction quality like what the muggle news outlets were saying. 

It wasn’t smart to take the trip into the city with her sisters, but she hadn’t been able to convince her step-mother to let her go without bringing them along and there were no wizarding establishments anywhere closer where she could keep up with the news about voldemort and his followers.

She wrote as often as she could to Cynthia, but it often took a few days to hear anything back and Cyn was more interested in telling her all about what she was up to in her holidays than events that were affecting the muggle community. 

Rounding a corner she spies Harper, still sitting in the bakery where Eleanor had left her to watch Lillian and Imogen so that she could find the little hidden wizard’s shop to buy the paper before returning to them. 

“Thanks for that,” Eleanor says quietly to Harper when she enters the bakery, glad that her half-sister was home from school to make the holidays more bearable and who was more than willing to help her keep in touch with the magic community wherever possible.

“Why don’t we go buy some presents and then we can head back home?” Eleanor asks the two younger girls, eager to return home now she had what she needed. “Is there anything in particular you want for your birthday?”

Harper would be turning fifteen in less than a week and they had made it a habit, rather than guessing, to just buy each other something when they went shopping together since they both spent more time away at their schools than home.

“Well, there’s this school ball happening later this year and I would love to have this gorgeous pair of shoes that I’ve had my eye on for a while,” Harper smiled as the group of them left the cafe into the unnaturally chill summer air.

“The kind our parents wouldn’t approve of I take it?”

“Exactly.” 

Strolling peacefully from shop to shop for an hour or so they finally return to the bus stop weighed down with their purchases, presents for both Harper and Eleanor who would celebrate her birthday with her step-sister like every year since she would be back at Hogwarts for her own birthday.

“Just imagine, by the time you come home for Christmas you’ll be seventeen and able to drive us around on your own. No more waiting at a bus station or walking the twenty minutes to the stop from home.” 

Not to mention I’ll be able to perform magic outside of school. Eleanor thought to herself. And then I can make you all safer with protective spells around the house.

A week into her holidays at home she had received a letter from Susan, the ink smudged with tears as she informed Eleanor that her Aunt, Amelia Bones, a very powerful witch from everything Eleanor had heard, had been killed in her home possibly by Voldemort himself.

Ever since then every noise made Eleanor jump and she barely slept at night, constantly keeping one ear out for the creak of a gate or the crunch of gravel underfoot. Sure her family were muggles, but her father belonged to the Wicks and, in the last war as just as much of a target as her mother had been for all the involvement he had in the plans to bring down Voldemort. Eleanor only hoped the guy didn’t hold grudges.

Shivering a little despite the sun that was still high in the sky, Eleanor gripped the hands of her younger sisters as the bus pulled up to the curb, doors squealing open allowing them to board and find a group of seats together for the drive back home.

“So, is there anything interesting going on?” Harper asks when Lillian and Imogen are distracted playing I-Spy with each other.

“Hmm, more of the usual really. The bridge of course, and the freak hurricanes,” Eleanor flicks through the pages of the paper, a pamphlet on security measures you can take around the house falling onto her lap.

“Can I have a look?” Harper says as Eleanor becomes distracted with the pamphlet.

“Go for it.”

The first time Harper had found Eleanor with a newspaper whose images were moving she had been thoroughly disturbed. Since the age gap between them was so little she had grown up knowing all about Eleanor’s magic, but she had never seen any form of it. Now, every chance she got she took the papers when Eleanor was finished with them, staring in awe at the rearranging stories, no matter what horrors they were reporting on.

“Who’s Harry Potter?” She asks, a photo of the boy catching her eye, along with the bold headline reading - Harry Potter: The Chosen One?

“He’s a boy in the same year as me at school. And right now a lot of people think he’s very important.”

“And is he?”

“I think people shouldn’t pin all their hopes on one person.”

“They talk about him like he’s a celebrity.” She says, her eyes absorbing the articles about him.

“He kind of is, I don’t think you’d find a witch or wizard who didn’t know his name.”

“And are you friends?”

“No. We’ve hung out a little before, but no.”

Eleanor was tired of talking about Harry, especially since this year he probably wouldn’t want anything to do with her when it got out that she had decided to befriend one of his biggest enemies - Draco Malfoy.

Thankfully, Harper had moved on from the articles about Harry, skimming quickly through the rest of the paper.

“Who are your friends?” She asks, as she folds up the Prophet and hands it back to Eleanor.

“Why are you suddenly so interested with who I’m friends with?”

“Well you’ve met all my friends before, besides, it interests me - getting to know about this whole other world that you get to live in.” Her voice is quiet, well aware of how she would sound to other muggles sitting on the bus and, glancing out the window they can see their stop approaching.

“I can show you when we get home. There’s some more pictures there that I took while I was at school.”

“Moving pictures?” she asks, her eyes lighting up.

“Yes, moving pictures.” Eleanor says, smiling at Harper’s excitement.

The bus lurches to a stop and the four of them step out into an unnatural amount of fog, reducing visibility greatly and causing Imogen to cling closer to Eleanor’s hand. Walking along the sidewalk they find the whole town to be blanketed in it, with hardly anyone wandering the streets either from simply wanting to avoid the fog or some other, deeper instinct that told them to venture out into it would be a foolish thing to do.

They had just left the borders of the town for the little cottage they occupied ten minutes out when Eleanor finally realised what was causing it.

“Dementors,” she breathed, more to herself than for her sisters to hear.

Sure enough they passed by a small pool of water beside the road that was frozen solid, confirming for Eleanor that somewhere nearby dementors were roaming and breeding too if they really were the cause for all the fog.

Cursing herself she realised her wand was still at home, locked away in her trunk. Despite everything that had been happening it had still been instinct to her to put her wand away when she returned home for summer. Not that it would change much anyway since she still had the trace on her and even then she had yet to be able to produce a patronus.

She was useless, and a beacon to the creatures, she realised, knowing her panic would draw them closer to her and her sisters who had no idea what was lurking out there and were simply walking along wondering aloud their amazement at the fog.

There hadn’t yet been a report of muggles being attacked by the creatures that had given up guarding azkaban last year to join Voldemort, but Eleanor doubted any muggles that did venture outside during this weather had a witch with them, pulling the creatures closer.

Picking up her pace as subtly as she can, Eleanor takes a few calming breaths fully alert for anything moving in the fog around them. 

The time it took them to get home felt like an age, the old gate of their front yard a welcome sight as Eleanor looses the breath she had been holding, pushing her sisters through and casting her gaze around the garden before she follows them into the house.

____

The fog had cleared by the next morning but Eleanor was still hesitant to venture too far outside the house, her wand now safely tucked away into the pocket of whatever she wore.

After spending the evening tucked away in the bedroom she and Harper shared, going over the dozens and dozens of pictures that she had developed of her friends at Hogwarts she stayed up late into the night, waiting for her sister to fall asleep before she pulled out a spare sheet of parchment and a quill, scrawling a hurried letter before handing it off to the owl who had just delivered her a letter from Cynthia. 

Surely she wouldn’t mind her borrowing her owl for something as important as this!

Now, sitting on the old wooden swing in the backyard rocking back and forth as she watches Imogen and Lillian chasing one another she feels confident that she is doing the right thing. A sudden commotion from inside drawing her attention.

Trusting that since the fog was gone the girls would be fine on their own outside for a few minutes she enters the house through the back door, catching the end of a heated but hushed conversation.

“I just don’t understand what you’re doing here,” she heard her father saying from the lounge room in the front of the house.

Pushing open the door she finds the headmaster of Hogwarts school Albus Dumbledore, seated across from her father and step-mother, entirely unperturbed by the fact that he was apparently not expected.

“I asked him here dad,” Eleanor says, walking into the middle of the lounge room, her father looking at her with confusion and surprise.

“Y-you invited a wizard? Here?”

“I need his help, we all do that’s why he’s here dad and I need you to hear him out.” She says, praying that her father wouldn’t just kick him out straight away.

Beside her Professor Dumbledore sits forward a little more, clearing his throat softly before speaking. “You may or may not be aware Mister Wicks, but in recent weeks there have been incidents occurring across both the wizarding and muggle communities. Incidents that have to do with the return of the wizard Voldemort.”

Dumbledore waits a second for this news to sink in before continuing, “And, it has come to the attention of your daughter here that it might be best for you and for your family,” at this he glances to the pictures of her sisters in the room, “for any and all affiliations to the wizarding community and yourselves to be severed.”

Her father frowns, “I already have cut my ties to the wizarding world. I did a long time ago.”

“Not all of them,” Dumbledore says gently, turning now to look at Eleanor.

“No.” Her father says abruptly, leaping from the chair as though he’s been shocked, “She’s my daughter. Voldemort’s back you say? Well, magic or not I can keep my own daughter safe. We’ll go into hiding, change our names, but I’ll not abandon her.”

“Dad,” Eleanor says, surprised at how quickly he had jumped to her defense when they had never been particularly close, “It’s not me who needs to be kept safe. And I don’t want to run off into hiding, I belong in the wizarding world with my friends. Just like you all belong here. It would just be safer for you, for my sisters, if I were gone, if there was no reason for anyone to come here. If- if you all have no knowledge of the wizarding world.”

Her father stares at her, and for a moment Eleanor thinks he will keep refusing, but she sees the look on his face as he hears the shrieks of Lillian and Imogen from outside, the soft humming of Harper from somewhere further in the house. “I want to do this dad. I want to let you all forget about me, so that they are safe.”

She’s done it. She’s won, her step-mother is looking pleadingly at her husband as she hears that this will keep her children safe. Well, as safe as any muggle can be from Voldemort.

“Okay.” He breathes.

Dumbledore nods his head once, before turning to Eleanor. 

“Go pack your things, I’ll explain everything in more detail to your parents and then take you to your guardian’s house.”

Hugging her father tightly before she leaves the room Eleanor again assures herself deep down this is the right thing to do. Considering who she was friends with, considering everything that could happen this year, this was the only thing to do.

She leaves the room in silence, slipping quietly into her bedroom where she unlocks the cupboard with her trunk already packed inside. She’d been ready for this ever since the murders had begun, but she had kept putting off writing to Professor Dumbledore until walking home yesterday, until she realised her sisters wouldn’t have been out in the city, or walking home amongst a dementor’s fog if she hadn’t taken them all along to get word of the wizard world.

She doesn’t want to say goodbye - they won’t remember it anyway, she thinks to herself, slipping out the front door quietly and waiting for Professor Dumbledore to join her which he does a few minutes later.

“Thank you Professor,” She says, as he casts a few protection charms around the house for safety. 

“I’ve had one or two other students request the same thing Miss Wicks, and in this case I think it is indeed for the best.”

When he is done he turns and holds his arm out for her to take, “Have you ever side-along apparated before?”

“No Sir,” she says, taking a hold of his arm, her bags having already been whisked off by another spell.

“Well, I must warn you, the experience will likely not be a pleasant one.”

Without another word she felt Dumbledore twist away from her and then everything went black as she was pressed in on from all around and she felt she couldn’t breathe. The next moment they had emerged into a light sprinkling of rain and Eleanor gulped down the fresh air, feeling thoroughly ill.

“Are you all right?” Dumbledore asks, seemingly unaffected.

“Yes,” she replies after a few more seconds of gaining her bearings. Looking around she notices that they are at the end of a lavish, muggle street all of the houses around her ornate and grand looking.

“This way,” Dumbledore says, setting off down the road at a steady pace. “I do believe you may have befriended the young Draco Malfoy at the end of last year,” Dumbledore says his effort at making the question sound like a casual observation noticed by Eleanor.

“Do you disapprove Professor?” She asks, wondering if he is going to advise her against it.

“Everyone needs a friend Miss Wicks, especially those like Draco Malfoy. I would advise caution though, being his friend may lead you down a path where you have to choose sides.”

“Are you saying I shouldn’t be his friend because he will do work for Voldemort?”

Her directness makes the Headmaster chuckle lightly to himself, “No Miss Wicks, but I am suggesting that if you’re going to wade into the world of death eaters that you learn ways to protect yourself, your friends and your thoughts.”

“My thoughts Professor?”

But Dumbledore says nothing else, having stopped outside one of the many curling, iron gates leading to the steps of one of the glamourous houses, a flicker of movement behind one of the windows.

“This is where I leave you Miss Wicks, I know you had very little contact with your wizard relatives but your father’s brother was more than happy to take you in, even on the short notice. And what’s more your cousin will be starting at Hogwarts this year so you should have some company your own age.”

The man waits only long enough for the door of the house to open, calling goodbye to Eleanor before turning back down the street, Eleanor still pondering their earlier conversation. The woman who opened the door is rather short and petite, her features set into a warm, welcoming smile as she ushers Eleanor into the house.

“I’m your Aunt Hinata,” she smiles. Her sleek black hair is twisted up into an ornate style and her deep brown eyes move over Eleanor’s face as she examines her niece for the first time. The sound of a door closing catches her attention and the booming voice of a man greets her. 

“Eleanor! The last time I saw you you had just started to crawl.” The man approaching doesn’t look much like her father, his hair light while her father’s was dark, and where her father had crows feet from laughing and smiling, this man’s face was smooth with barely a wrinkle.

“Thank you for letting me stay,” she says, completely caught off guard by these people she had never met but who were supposed to be her family.

“It was our pleasure,” the man says, holding out his hand for her to shake, “Herbert Wicks. And you’ve met my wife.”

“Hello.”

“Well, if you like we’ll show you to your room and let you settle in, dinner will be in an hour or so.” He smiles, turning to lead Eleanor up the stairs.

Looking around Eleanor is astounded at the interior of the house, every bit as grand on the inside. Scattered about are dozens of portraits of no doubt previous Wicks witches and Wizards and others who she guesses come from her Aunt’s family. On the wall beside the staircase is a tapestry of the Hogwarts school crest and beside it another one she doesn’t recognise.

“It’s the Mahoutokoro school crest,” her Aunt says, noticing her staring at it.

“The what?”

“It’s the school I went to, in Japan.”

“Oh.”

“It’s where our daughter was also going but, well what with everything happening at the moment we didn’t think it safe to have her so far away from home,” her Uncle says. “So she’ll be finishing her schooling at Hogwarts.”

“How old is your daughter?” Eleanor asks as they reach the second floor landing.

“Sixteen, so she’ll be going into your year when she starts,” her aunt says, “you’ll meet her soon, she’s no doubt around here somewhere.”

“Here we are, feel free to make yourself at home,” her uncle says, stopping outside a door and opening it for Eleanor, “we’ll have someone come get you for dinner, we have guests coming over so you might like to wash up and change.”

With that the two wander off, leaving Eleanor alone to settle in. The room is rather spacious, wardrobes line the wall immediately beside Eleanor as she walks in, a small makeup table and settee placed by them. Further down is a large canopy bed, a desk, several bookshelves and at the end of it all, a comfy looking window seat overlooking the street below.

Her trunk had been left by the wardrobes and the first thing she does is open the basket sitting on top of it to lift out her fluffy white cat, Ollie who lets her hug him briefly before pouncing to the ground to inspect his new living conditions.

Watching him sniff around the room Eleanor feels the warm tears and tastes salt on her lips before she realises she’s crying. Exhaustion overwhelms her and all she wants to do is curl up in bed and cry and cry and cry. Instead she unlocks her trunk and begins to unpack her things, sorting through her clothes for something that might be suitable for a dinner with this fancy family she knew nothing about.

“I’d go with the first dress, that one’s more of a dinner party dress,” a soft voice says from the doorway of Eleanor’s new room.

Looking she finds a girl leaning against the door frame, her arms crossed across her chest as she watches Eleanor struggling to make a decision.

“I thought there were guests coming?”

“There are, but they’re just family friends nothing fancy.”

She moves into the room, to take a seat on the settee beside Eleanor. “I’m Michiko.”

Looking at her Eleanor can see that her cousin has inherited more of her mother’s looks than her father’s. Her thick, black hair hangs halfway down her back, she has the same deep chocolate coloured eyes and her petite figure also comes from her mother though she looks a little taller.

“Eleanor,” she says, stepping back behind the screen to change back into the first outfit, a casual forest green dress that sits just above Eleaonor’s knees with t-shirt style sleeves. Stepping out Michiko gives a little clap and offers to do her hair for her.

Michiko’s own dress is more form fitting and made of a royal blue but Eleanor can see that it is still more casual than she had been fretting about.

“Thanks, I had no idea if what I had was appropriate, I thought-”

“That we were gonna get all glammed up without warning you?” Michiko smiles, finishing with Eleanor’s hair in a matter of seconds and leading her out into the hallway.

“Are you nervous to be starting at Hogwarts?” Eleanor asks as they walk down the staircase.

“Not really, school is school. Though the whole house thing is different I suppose. At Mahoutokoro we were more defined by the colour of our robe which changed with our skills than we were by anything else.”

“Robes?”

“They start as a pink when you first get them and the goal is for golden robes, that symbolises the height of academic achievement. I was so close, if I was going back this year I probably would have gotten them but-”

A flicker of annoyance flashes across her face and Eleanor sympathises for her, having to leave behind her friends and goals to start at a school where she wouldn’t be a captain of anything or have made any progress towards anything.

The guests had already arrived by the sound of it as Eleanor and Michiko reach the bottom of the stairs. 

“You might know them,” Michiko says crossing the floor to the dining room, “Their son goes to Hogwarts.”

“What’s his name?”

“Malfoy.”


	2. Two

“Malfoy?” Eleanor asked, not sure if she’d heard right. They were the last people she had thought her Aunt and Uncle would be acquainted with.

“Yeah, Narcissa Malfoy is a friend of mum’s, I take it you do know him?”

“He uh, he’s a recent friend of mine.”

“Is he nice? I’ve only met him a few times when we were children and mostly at formal events. Mum thought this would be a good opportunity to properly become acquainted with someone who attended Hogwarts before I went.”

“Nice is, not always the word I would use to describe him.” Eleanor says as they enter the dining room where the Malfoys are already waiting, Draco looking at Eleanor with surprise and something almost like relief.

“You’re right, incredibly handsome would be a far better word to describe me. Much better than nice at least,” drawls Malfoy, his usual smug smirk on his face as he looks between the two girls.

“Draco,” Eleanor says, smiling lightly back unable to do anything but stare for a moment. He was dressed in all black, his pale blond hair, slightly shorter than last year, shining from the chandelier that was lighting up the room. It was his eyes though that gave her pause, in the light the grey could have almost passed for silver and yet when she looked a little longer she could see beyond the smile to the faint dark weariness that lined them - no doubt from all the stress of the past few months, and from who was now living in his house if certain rumours were to be believed.

“You must be Eleanor,” says a lady already seated at the dining table, snapping Eleanor out of her thoughts, her long, pale blonde hair marking her as Draco’s mother.

“Yes, uh, and you’re Draco’s mother?” she says, holding out a tentative hand to the woman who eyes it for a second before reaching out to shake it. Though she was very pleasant looking she too radiated a certain weariness, Draco’s father was nowhere to be seen.

“How is Lucius?” Herbert asks, holding out a drink for the woman, Narcissa to take.

“Still in Azkaban, I was able to visit him once. We’re all holding on to hope he won’t be in there for too much longer.”

Not now the dementors are gone, Eleaonr thought to herself, surprised that he hadn’t already returned home. Punishment she supposed, not from the Ministry but Voldemort himself.

Turning to face Draco once more Eleanor finds him silently studying her, Michiko already moving away to take a seat at the table.

“You didn’t tell me you were visiting family,” he says softly enough for only Eleanor to hear.

“It just happened this afternoon, and - it’s not a visit,” she says shifting on her feet, “Dumbledore arranged for them to let me stay here, after everything going on you know?”

Draco sighed and nodded his head, “Yeah I know. I’m sorry, it must’ve been hard to make that decision.”

“As long as it was the right one.”

“Are you two going to just stand there talking or would you like to eat at some point?” Michiko calls from the table and they turned to find that they were the only two left standing.

Two seats are left beside Michi who stares pointedly at Eleanor for a moment, a sly grin gracing her face as Draco goes to the effort to hold out Eleanor’s chair for her before taking his own seat next to her.

“I didn’t know you had such good manners,” Eleanor says, ignoring the look from Michi.

“There’s a lot you don’t know about me,” Draco replies, turning in his chair slightly to include Michi in the conversation.

“I hear you’re starting at Hogwarts this year.”

“Yup,” Michi says, food already on her plate as she pulls another serving dish towards her, offering it to Eleanor next who was trying her best not to drool from the delicious smells that had wafted around the table as the food appeared.

Her Aunt and Uncle had also begun to fill their plates, an easy pleasant conversation occurring between them and Narcissa Malfoy. Eleanor still so unsure and confused at their friendship. She didn’t know much about the Wicks family since her father left, but she had grown up knowing her mother had died fighting against the death eaters and her grandmother had found her daughter-in-law’s sacrifice to be a source of pride for the family.

So now sitting here watching her Uncle be on such friendly terms, enquiring after Lucius and a few others she wondered if Dumbledore had known who he had left her with. She supposed she shouldn’t make assumptions, not when she herself was making the effort to befriend Malfoy - someone who had actually been a source of some comfort for her at the end of last year despite his family name.

Tearing herself away from her thoughts once again she doesn’t hesitate any longer and begins filling her plate with the delectable food, falling into her own easy conversation with Michi and Draco.

They explained a little about Hogwarts and the houses and Michi told them all about Mahoutokoro and, when dinner had ceased and her parents had moved off for drinks with Narcissa before dessert was served, about the wild parties they often threw in the dorms.

“Don’t expect to have any crazy parties at Hogwarts,” Eleanor laughs, allowing herself and Draco to be led into the spacious sitting room where the others were already sitting. “Not unless you win a Quidditch match and even then they’re nothing like what you described.”

“We’ll see about that,” was all Michi said in reply, a devious grin flashing on her face. 

“If you can find a way to throw a party without the teachers catching on then I will be very impressed,” Eleanor says, accepting the drink Michi was offering her.

“You’re on.”

Not too long after dessert was served and they returned to the dining room for another hour before Narcissa stood and announced that they should be getting back.

Before he followed his mother out into the foyer Draco turned to Eleanor, Michi sitting beside her, “We’re going to Diagon Alley the last week before school goes back, if you two wanted to come along for company?”

“Oh that sounds fantastic,” Michi said, getting up from her seat, “Let me just go check with mum.”

It was just the two of them in the room, standing in silence, neither one of them knowing just what to say - unused to being around one another for anything other than studying. Their snarky quips about one another had dotted the conversation throughout the night as usual, but it was of an easy, joking nature that had set Eleanor at ease in the room of strangers. And yet now here she was, standing like a fool with nothing to say.

They’re saved though when Narcissa calls for Draco from the foyer, pulling him from whatever he had been thinking. He smiled once and turned to leave and follow, stopping once at the doorway with a sly grin on his face as he turned his head to look at Eleanor once more, “You look nice in the green by the way. You should wear it more often.”

Despite herself her cheeks flushed with warmth and she knew if she looked in a mirror they would be several shades of red. 

“I’ll take it into consideration,” she said, scolding herself for how she had reacted from one compliment. 

It’s been a long time since I’ve had one. She thought to herself, the only reason she had reacted that way. She may have befriended Draco Malfoy, despite everything with his family. But that was where it ended, he was a flirt with any girl he deemed worthy of him, was still an absolute ass and besides, she didn’t need Pansy Parkinson out for her blood.  
____

“Are all the boys at Hogwarts so devilishly good looking?” Michiko asks later that night, sprawled out on Eleanor’s bed.

“Malfoy’s devilishly good looking?” Eleanor asks, barely looking up from the book in front of her.

“You think he isn’t?” Michi asks, sitting up to stare at Eleanor.

“I think he’s Malfoy, a sneering pain in my ass.” 

A pillow thumps into Eleanor’s back.

“Yes but he’s a gorgeous sneering pain in your ass. He’s got a nice one of those too by the way.”

It was Eleanor’s turn to throw the pillow at Michi.

“You’ve never looked?”

“No,” Eleanor laughed, “Why would I?”

“Trust me, next time look. You’ll change your mind then.”

“No thanks, I’ll just take your word for it.”

Michi fixes the pillow up and turns back to Eleanor, “But you didn’t answer me.”

“Hmm, I guess there are good looking guys at Hogwarts. I don’t take the time to pick them out in a crowd and gawk at them though so you might be better off sourcing your information from someone else.” Eleanor winced a bit at her answer, the reason she hadn’t been going out of her way to gawk at cute guys last year, Cynthia’s brother Reggie. Who had turned out to be an ass and who hadn’t spoken to Eleanor since outside the hospital wing last year and who thankfully was now finished with Hogwarts and wouldn’t be returning.

They sit up together a little longer, Eleanor shaking away thoughts of boys, until Michiko decides she’s yawned one too many times and returns to her own room, leaving Eleanor to finally do what she’s wanted to do all night - curl up under the blankets of her bed and sleep after the exhausting rollercoaster that had been her day. Tears staining her pillow as she silently mourned for the family that had already forgotten her and moved on in their lives.


	3. Three

Eleanor arrived at Diagon Alley just before the last week of the holidays began, eager to see Cynthia and find out what it was like staying with Fred and George in the flat above their shop and to introduce her to Michiko whom she found to rather enjoy the company of as they spent all their days together getting to know one another.

They already had their money stashed away in their pockets, Eleanor’s Uncle having stopped by Grinngotts to withdraw it a few days before on his way home from work when there weren’t as many people around waiting to get through the tightened security the bank now insisted upon.

Walking together down the street they found Draco and his mother leaving Madam Malkins, a scowl already on his face and it doesn’t take Eleanor long to notice the reason why when she spots the flaming red hair of Ron Weasley along with Harry and Hermione in the shop he’s just left.

“I take it you’ve had a cheery start to your day,” she smiles greeting him.

“As cheery as anyone can be running into those three,” he says, scowling back towards the shop. Beside him his mother nods in greeting, looking over the girls’ shoulders to see who had come with them to Diagon Alley.

“Hello Narcissa,” Eleanor hears her aunt call in greeting, the two women becoming instantly absorbed in conversation and allowing Eleanor and Michiko time to duck into the robe shop themselves to be fitted for new uniforms.

“What can I do for you girls?” Madam Malkin asked, nearly finished with Hermione’s robes.

“We need a set of Hufflepuff and a set of Ravenclaw robes,” Eleanor says in her politest voice, avoiding the hard stare she was getting from Harry who had obviously seen her and Malfoy talking outside.

“Hello Eleanor,” Hermione said, nudging Harry sharply, “Who’s this?”

“Michiko, I’m Eleanor’s cousin and starting at Hogwarts this year.”

“Oh? How do you know what robes you need already?”

“Professor McGonagall came for a visit with the sorting hat already, since she’d be needing to get her house robes before getting to Hogwarts,” Eleanor answers.

They continue with polite conversation until Madam Malkin is finished and the trio leave the shop, Eleanor and Michiko following not long after, their new uniforms in hand. Outside Draco is still waiting for them, a wry grin on his face as he had just succeeded in convincing his mother to go continue catching up with her friend while the rest of them did their shopping - promising to find her for lunch.

“Did you see that Ollivander’s and Florean’s are closed?” Eleanor asks him as they pass the ransacked shop that used to be the home of one of the finest wandmakers.

“Mm, they’re not the only ones,” Draco says gesturing to two more boarded up buildings across the street.

They amble along to each of the shops that are open, buying their new school books and a variety of replacement supplies for their classes.

“I meant to write and ask, but then I decided to wait until I saw you, how did you go on your OWLs? Did you get the grades for alchemy?” Draco asks as they sift through a list of ingredients for potions.

“OWLs?” Michiko says.

“Exams we had to take last year to decide what classes we could do this year,” Eleanor clarifies before turning to address Draco’s questions. “I’m pretty happy with how I did, two As, two Es and five Os one of which was Potions thanks to you so yes, I got into alchemy. I take it you did as well?”

“Yup, so I hope you’re not sick of me yet because you’ve got a whole two years of my wonderful banter to listen to.”

“Ooh Eleanor can we go in here to look?” Michiko says, tugging on her arm pulling her towards the Quidditch shop, the latest model of broomstick on display in the window, obscured by the large purple ministry flyers that were everywhere on defending yourself and the images of the escaped death eaters that were dotted about. Bellatrix Lestrage was staring up at Eleanor on this particular window.

“She moved in to the manor,” Draco says softly beside her, following her gaze.

“What’s she like?”

“Insane. Not that I’d tell her. She admires him, insists I be happy I’m getting the chance to prove myself and redeem the family after dad’s failure at the ministry.”

“He’s home now too isn’t he?” They’re inside the shop now, keeping to the furthest shelves while Michiko shops.

“Yeah, got back a few weeks ago, around the same time everyone decided our home was their headquarters. It’s unnerving, knowing that you-know-who is sleeping under the same roof as me. If he sleeps that is.”

“Shh,” Eleanor says as they draw closer to the front of the shop, “Only a week to go and then you can tell me everything, and you’ll be out of there. But for now, who knows who’s listening.”

They join Michiko who is debating with herself on buying the broom in front of her, “Tell me there’s a team I can try out for.”

“There is, all four houses play against one another,” Eleanor says, “You play?”

“Do I play? Of course I do, I’m from Mahoutokoro. It's an obsession over there.”

“What team do you go for?” Draco asks.

“Toyohashi Tengu.” She replies instantly, a huge grin on her face. “At home I have posters of the team all over the walls.”

That’s the truth. Eleanor mused to herself, remembering how shocked she had been at first. She had expected elegant portraits and art similar to how the rest of the house was furnished but when she entered she’d been bombarded with the red and white colours of the posters and photographs of the team displayed proudly on every wall.

They lingered for a few more minutes in the shop, laughing amongst themselves as Michiko caved and bought the broom, waving off the fact her purse was now considerably lighter. Back out in the street they continued down Diagon Alley, on their way to Weasley’s Wizard Wheezes.

“Wow,” Eleanor said as the shop came into sight, while the shops around them had become dull and neglected the joke shop was a bright vivid burst of light as dozens goods let off pops and whizzes from inside.

“Enjoy catching up with your friend, nice seeing you again Michiko,” Draco says, having already told them he refused to go in with them, instead saying something about another item of importance he had to see to.

They watched him slip away, hurrying off, Eleanor left with a feeling that he wasn’t planning on getting this item from Diagon Alley and hoping he knew what he was doing. Beside her Michiko also watches him stalk away and Eleanor wonders how close the two families are, if it runs deeper than just friendship, if they are similarly aligned. The thought didn’t disturb Eleanor as much as it probably should have. 

“Are we going in?” Michiko asks beside her, her eyes alight with excitement.

“Yeah come on.”

Inside the shop is crowded with people, and it takes a few minutes of pushing through everyone until Eleanor spots the flaming red hair of one of the twins, Fred or George she couldn’t tell.

“Business looks like it’s doing well,” she says, speaking loudly so he could hear her over the noise.

“Eleanor, good to see you. Yeah we’re doing pretty well,” he says, looking around at the crowd, “Cynthia’s around here somewhere.”

He leads them around the shop until he discovers Cynthia helping a witch with short blonde hair attend to a group of customers, but when she spots Eleanor walk in she leaves the other witch to her own devices, running over to tackle her friend in a fierce hug.

Over the holidays she had taken the dye out of her hair, allowing it to return to it’s light brown colour and it hangs in a stylish bob around her face, making her look more mature than Eleanor had ever seen.

“You look so good,” she says, hugging her friend back before stepping back to gesture to Michiko who was hanging back a little.

“This is my cousin - the one I wrote to you about in my last letter.”

“Michiko, nice to meet you,” the dark haired witch smiles, holding her hand out for Cynthia to shake.

“You too. Come on let’s get out of here it’s too loud for a proper conversation,” Cynthia says, leading the way out the back of the shop to a staircase that must lead to the flat.

It’s a cosy living area, with a little kitchen off to the side and several doorways leading off. Eleanor can already see Cynthia’s touch in the little plants scattered around the room, as well as the dozens of magazines and books scattered all over the place.

“How have your holidays been?” Eleanor asks as they sit on the lounge that takes up most of the room, a coffee table in front of it where Cynthia’s custard coloured puffskein Ludlow is currently sitting, a smaller pink ball of fluff beside him.

“Ah, this is Ciera, Ludlow’s new pygmy puff friend Cynthia says, petting them both quickly before setting about preparing drinks for the three of them. “The holidays have been great, extremely busy down in the store and I help out whenever they need it or if I’m particularly bored. Which is fairly often considering just how many of the shops around here have closed now.”

“Yeah we’ve just been through to buy all our things, I can’t believe Ollivander is gone. Just imagine, all those first years having to buy their wands from somewhere else.” 

“At least all the shops we need for school are still open, but it has been eerie, living here where one day you go to bed and find that the shop you had just been to is empty the next morning.”

She sets down cups of tea in front of both Eleanor and Michiko, who smiles in thanks but stays quiet.

“Oh I did okay on my OWLs too, only got one P. And I got this little beauty in the mail the other day as well,” Cynthia smiles, holding up a badge for Hufflepuff Quidditch Captain. “You can share that lovely prefect’s bathroom of yours with me now.”

“Congratulations,” Eleanor says hugging Cynthia again, talking for a little longer until Michiko points out the time.

“Crap, sorry Cyn but we have to get back for lunch.”

“Let’s hope we can find Draco, Narcissa won’t be happy if we come back and he’s not with us,” Michiko says as they stand to leave.

“You came here with Malfoy?” 

“Yeah, I told you, he’s not so bad once you spend some time with him, we’ve been writing to one another over the holidays.”

“I know it’s just, I didn’t realise you were already so chummy. Anyway I’m not judging, just maybe be wary about mentioning it around Susan. She’s not gonna be so keen after what happened over the holidays.” Cynthia says before taking them back downstairs, hugging Eleanor once more and then instantly being swallowed up again in the chaos of the shop.

“Why is it surprising that you’re friends with Draco?” Michiko asks as they make their way up the street.

“He and his family have not got the best reputation at school.”

“Because his father works for Voldemort?”

“And because it’s expected he will too someday,” Not that he isn’t already.

“But you are friends with him.”

“He needed one. Needs one, to talk to about things and-”

“Oh you don’t need to defend yourself,” Michiko says, “I think it’s wonderful actually, not caring about the politics going on just being friends with who you want to be friends with. Plus, it’s a bit exciting isn’t it? Doing something people will see as naughty, something wrong.”

Not for the first time that day Eleanor gets the feeling that she could have told Michiko she was working for Voldemort and the girl still wouldn’t care, it intrigued her. She knew Draco had no choice, he was doing this for not just his survival, but the survival of his family. But the way Michiko spoke about it made it seem like they were all willingly choosing to enter this world that was more dangerous than she had yet realised.

They find Draco waiting not far from the shop, his other business apparently concluded as he joins them in returning to the two women to end the day with lunch before returning home, Draco smiling wanly before following his mother back to the house he now shared with Voldemort.

___

“I know you said you were making an effort to be friends with him, I just didn’t realise that you were going to become quite so friendly so soon. Going shopping together in Diagon Alley? People will notice.” Cynthia says quietly to Eleanor as they make their way together down the Hogwarts Express, each of them having received an invitation to join a Professor Slughorn in his compartment for lunch.

“I don’t care that people will notice, he was quite nice when he wanted to be last year - far more pleasant than other people,” Eleanor says, not mentioning Reggie’s name but knowing Cynthia would know it was her brother that she was referring to. 

“Yeah he did turn out to be quite the ass.”

“So I don’t care if the people I’m friends with aren’t the people I’m supposed to associate with, as long as they treat me well and actually act like a friend should.”

Cynthia only nods slightly, the conversation ending as they enter compartment C and find several other students also gathered, including the Slytherin boy that Eleanor had often seen with Draco.

Blaise. She remembered Draco calling him once.

Smiling lightly they take a seat as the new Professor shook their hands and introduced them to those who were gathered, Ginny Weasley being the only other person they actually knew. As well as Blaise and Ginny were two seventh years; Cormac McLaggen and Marcus Belby. 

Moments later they were joined by Harry and Neville, the former of which seemed to cause Slughorn to light up with delight. When everyone was seated he began to pass out food as he informed them all about Marcus Belby’s Uncle - a wizard who had invented the Wolfsbane potion. He asked Belby if he saw much of his Uncle and when he replied that they weren’t close Slughorn smiled tightly before promptly moving on to McLaggen.

It soon became glaringly obvious to Eleanor as she ate her roll and cold meat that everyone gathered here either had family members of considerable prestige and influence in the wizarding community or showed promise to earn that for themselves upon leaving Hogwarts.

Cynthia, Blaise, Neville and McLaggen were all here for their family connections, Cynthia’s father was a recently retired world-famous Quidditch player and her mother was fairly high up in the Ministry, while Blaise had a famously beautiful mother, McLaggen a well connected Uncle and Neville’s parents were infamous for their role as aurors from the first war. 

Harry was here for obvious reasons, and Eleanor had been invited along it seemed for her success at being allowed to study alchemy this year as well as her own family connection to her mother who had also been an auror. 

She wondered though, if she had been granted an invitation based off of getting into alchemy and her infamous mother, where was Draco? He would be joining her in alchemy, not to mention his family - well, they had held considerable influence. She supposed that Slughorn wanted nothing to do with him based on what had happened at the end of last year.

Ginny was here on her own merit, having performed a hex on Zachiarias Smith while Slughorn passed by.

“Oh I wish I could have seen that,” Cynthia muttered to Eleanor afterwards when they had overheard her explaining to Harry as they made their way back to their carriages for the rest of the trip to Hogwarts.

“That was the most uncomfortable thing I have ever been subjected to,” Eleanor said, “That McLaggen is the most boorish uppity boy I’ve met, not to mention poor Neville, being asked about his parents and Harry too.”

“Yes he did love talking about all our parents didn’t he? Not a bad lunch though,” Cynthia shrugged, sliding open the door to their compartment. Susan and Michiko were sitting talking between themselves as they entered.

Eleanor surveyed Susan, took in the slight red still lining her eyes, the pale pallid skin, how she didn’t seem to be paying any attention to anything being said, and she knew that the death of her Aunt had taken quite a serious toll on her.

They had all been careful about what they said in front of her, Eleanor pulling Michi aside before they got on the train to warn her not to ask about the holidays. Her cousin, thankfully, recognised the name and was kind enough to follow Eleanor’s warning.

Silently they slipped into the empty seats and watched from the window for the first signs of Hogwarts, each of them silently wondering to themselves how this year would turn out.


	4. Four

The feast had helped to pick up Susan’s spirits and had passed with little incident except when Harry himself rushed through the Great Hall towards the end of the feast, blood still covering his face.

“What do you think happened to him?” Susan had asked, doing her best not to stare.

“I can hazard a guess,” Cynthia said, nodding to Malfoy sitting at the Slytherin table scowling across at Harry.

Eleanor flushed a little but didn’t say anything, it wasn’t her place to worry what happened to the Chosen One. Instead finding the rest of her meal very interesting, daring a look to Malfoy to see him smirk lightly in her direction, shrugging off Harry’s late entrance.

She could feel Cynthia’s eyes boring into her but decided to ignore it, focussing all her attention on Dumbledore who had begun his start of year speech - announcing that Professor Slughorn would be teaching Potions as Professor Snape had been given the Defence Against the Dark Arts position.

The chatter that erupted in the room gave Cynthia the chance to turn to Eleanor, “You still sure you wanna be friends with someone like that? Cos I think you’ll find it to be quite difficult.”

“You don’t know what happened between them. And we’ve had this talk before Cynthia - I’m not trying to be his bestie or something, just a friend he can talk to and to have in class. There’s no harm in that.”

The feast had finished quickly and Eleanor was relieved that the new fifth year prefects had the job of showing the first years down to the common room as she instead linked arms with Cynthia and Susan as they hurried off - eager to avoid the wide eyed crowd.

_____

The next morning Eleanor had joined Cynthia at breakfast as they waited impatiently for their classes to be sorted.

“I can’t wait for the free periods this year,” Cynthia says, reaching for another piece of toast. “All that time to relax in the common room with no first years around - it’ll be great.”

“Yeah until you become inundated with all the homework we’ll have,” Susan says popping down in the seat opposite having slept in.

“Please, I have these next two years in the bag,” Cynthia says waving off the look Susan gives her.

Just then Professor Sprout appeared beside them, a pile of blank timetables in her hands as she started with Susan, approving her for her classes before moving on to Cynthia - neither of them were continuing with potions this year, instead taking Defence Against the Dark Arts, Charms, Herbology, Divination and Astronomy. Susan would also be taking charms and Eleanor waited as her own classes were approved. 

“Now, Potions and Transfiguration are fine, I see you’ll also be taking alchemy this year Miss Wicks? Best of luck with it,” the head of house said, continuing to go through her classes, “Defence Against the Dark Arts and Ancient Runes are also fine for you to continue with.”

With that the witch handed Eleanor her own timetable, a class for Ancient Runes first off so she said a quick goodbye to Cyn and Susan and scurried out of the Hall to her first class.

When she reaches the classroom she takes the first seat she sees, only realising after that she has sat beside Hermione Granger. The girl turns to face Eleanor, smiling lightly before a frown creases her brow. 

Before she can worry about it though class begins and Hermione is too swept up in listening to the teacher’s every word to remember whatever it was she had been planning on saying. When the lesson ended, without giving Hermione a chance, Eleanor is out of her chair and on her way to the common room to wait out her free before the rest of her classes.

Cynthia and Susan had joined her in the common room a few minutes later and they filled each other in on their first class and all the work they had already been assigned. 

“I can’t wait to be done with school, I can properly move in with George then and I even think I might be able to line up an apprenticeship with one of the papers for work,” Cynthia says, clearly disgruntled when Susan leaves them for the company of a girl who she’d had her eye on at the end of last year.

“I take it you’ll be going back there for the Christmas holidays then?” Eleanor asks.

“Yeah. You’re welcome to come along too if you like, it’d be a bit tight but there’s space on the lounge. I’m guessing it’s weird to stay at your Aunt and Uncles’.”

“A little,” Eleanor says, “Thanks for the offer, I’ll think about it.”

When their free is over the two of them trudge their way up to Defence Against the Dark Arts. 

“Who knows maybe now he’s in the job he’s wanted for years he could be so much nicer,” Cynthia says hopefully before they reach the classroom.

“Not a chance of that,” says another student beside them who had overheard. “He taught the Gryffindor’s just before, Harry Potter really riled him up by the sounds of it.”

“Oh well that’s just great,” Cynthia groans, making sure she wasn’t still grimacing when they entered the room and took their seats.

True to his nature when Professor Snape swooped in, his black cloak billowing a bit behind him, his face held a scowl on it that told everyone the first student who so much as breathed wrong was getting a detention.

The entire hour passed with baited breath as they listened to him insult the instructions of their previous teachers before beginning his own introduction to the year’s curriculum. He spoke with a fervour and Eleanor could tell that in this darkened room he was truly in his element when he talked about the Dark Arts - it chilled her a little.

When the lesson finally ended no one wasted time in clearing the room, Eleanor and Cynthia no exception, only daring to make a noise when they were well out of the classroom.

“This year is going to be unbearable,” Cynthia scowls, “At least I have a free now, how about you?”

“Potions,” Eleanor says, cringing for a moment before remembering it was now being taught by the much more temperate Professor Slughorn.

“Oh, have fun then,” Cynthia says, leaving her to finish walking down to the dungeon classroom on her own.

Unlike when Professor Snape had been teaching the room, though still dark and gloomy being in the dungeon, felt warmer than it ever had, the atmosphere one of ease. Standing to one side of the room Eleanor notes the other students entering, four Ravenclaw students she didn’t know, Harry, Ron and Hermione, a fellow Hufflepuff Ernie Macmillan and then four Slytherins, the cool, unimpressed face of Draco amongst them.

The room itself was set up in grouped tables, a different potion bubbling at each one. The Ravenclaws instantly gathered at one together, the Slytherins another and that ‘golden trio’ as Susan had sometimes referred to them took up seats together, Ernie Macmillan apparently joining them.

She was the only one left, standing on the edge of them all, unsure of where she’d be welcome. She had no interest of spending her lessons in a group with Hermione, who, although she was perfectly nice, set her on edge sometimes with her ‘know-it-all’ attitude. The Ravenclaws also weren’t an appealing choice for similar reasons and because they would look at her - a hufflepuff, and see her as a hindrance and an annoyance.

That left the Slytherins - or working on her own. She was sure if it was just Draco she wouldn’t have any qualms with sitting there, but surrounded by his peers, one of which who was clearly some sort of friend from the way they laughed together - she didn’t think she’d be welcome.

She had just decided to swallow her pride and take a seat at the empty remaining table to work on her own when the boy Malfoy had been talking with turned around. He was tall and lanky, his brown hair hung in his eyes and a grin she could only describe as cheeky spread across his face.

“You’re the one that kept helping this dork with getting into alchemy last year right?” The boy asked, leaning closer to Eleanor who had frozen entirely for a moment at the question. She hadn’t thought Draco was the type to talk about getting tuition to his friends - or that he’d have mentioned her, and yet apparently he had, enough that his friend had recognised her.

“Uh, y-yes. I helped a bit.” Next to the boy Draco sat frozen, glare boring into the side of his friend’s head, clearly unsure of where this was going.

“Did you want to join us? It’s no fun to sit alone.” 

She blinked a few times, wondering if she should just decline the offer. But he was right, she hadn’t looked forward to being alone at the back of the classroom, and she was intrigued by the boy who was still grinning, patting an empty stool beside him.

“Sure,” she says, picking up her books to move seats. She swears that Draco blinks in surprise and as she walks around to the stool she can see him whisper something furiously to the boy.

“Theodore Nott,” he says when she’s seated, offering a hand to her which she accepts.

“Eleanor, Wicks, but I guess you probably know that.”

The other two Slytherins sitting at the table frown a bit but after a moment shrug and turn back to their own conversation, clearly not bothered with her presence.

“You know, Draco I didn’t believe you at first but I’ll admit you’re right, she is quite stunning.”

Across the table Draco scowls at Theodore, a mumbled threat escaping his lips. 

“I said it’s stunning how annoying and uppity she could be, you ass.”

Eleanor can’t help the laugh tumbling from her mouth, as Theodore winks at her lazily. The boy is a charmer and she can’t help but like him as he dodges Draco’s slap at the same time Professor Slughorn enters the classroom, a beaming smile directed towards Harry when he spots him.

“I have prepared the potions in front of you for you all to have a look at and see the types of things you should all be able to make after completing your N.E.W.T.s. Can anyone tell me what this one is?” Slughorn asks, gesturing towards the potion by the Slytherin table, the liquid inside it looking just like water.

Before anyone has a chance Hermione’s hand has shot into the air and she’s reciting the name of the potion - veritaserum, along with a textbook definition. The next potion by the Ravenclaws, Polyjuice potion is also identified immediately by Hermione. Eleanor had recognised the potion from her second year, when she’d been escaping from Pansy Parkinson and gone into Moaning Myrtle’s bathroom for a reprieve. She’d stumbled across it brewing in one of the stalls but hadn’t known what it was called.

The final potion in front of the Gryffindors and Ernie was Amortentia, a love potion that was emitting the most delicious smells even as Eleanor sat across the classroom; the faintest whiff of mint and fresh coffee and something else she couldn’t identify. 

When Slughorn informs everyone that it is possibly the most dangerous potion in the room Draco and Theodore snort derisively, a disbelieving look on their faces. 

The final potion sitting on Professor Slughorn’s desk is splashing about, it’s golden colour mesmerising. “Ah, that is Felix Felices. I take it you know what it does Miss Granger?”

“It’s liquid luck. It makes you lucky,” Hermione said.

Draco snapped to attention, an almost desperate look flashing across his face as he listens to Slughorn rattle off information about the potion before finally declaring it to be the prize for whoever creates the best Draught of Living Death by the end of the class.

Malfoy was in a fervour as everyone began to study the instructions, and when Theodore slipped away to gather ingredients from the store cupboard Eleanor spoke to him. “You really want that liquid luck.”

“You wouldn’t?” He says without looking up from his work.

“It’d be okay, I’m not going to tear through my book in a rush to find this recipe to win it.” He had indeed torn several pages as he searched for the recipe and wordlessly Eleanor cast a charm to repair it while he added weights to his scale.

“Is there a particular reason you’re in need for so much luck?”

“Is there a particular reason I need to have?” He snaps back and Eleanor just shakes her head. 

“No I guess not.”

He can sense that she’s uneasy from the way he snapped and, just as Theo returns, a bunch of ingredients in hand, apologises. “I just really would like to win it.”

“Tell me about it.” Theo says, hearing the end of the conversation, handing Eleanor some of the ingredients for her to use to which she smiles in thanks. “Lucky for a whole day? Do you know how much fun I could have with that?”

“What would you do, if you had it?” Eleanor asks him, glad for the light hearted atmosphere he seems to radiate.

“Well first, I’d want to use it to get out of all my schoolwork and class for the day and then I’d ask out some ravishing beauty that normally would never look my way - just for the bragging rights I’ll have when she says yes.”

“I don’t know. Even lucky potions might not be able to perform magic like that,” Eleanor grins as Theodore places a hand over his heart, a half-heartedly offended look on his face.

“Did you hear that Draco? I thought you Hufflepuffs were supposed to be kind, you’ve been rubbing off on her too much with that cruel wit of yours.”

Draco, still fervently working on his potion barely glances up but manages a light smile, never stopping his work.

“I don’t know why you’re bothering,” Theodore says, “We all know if it’s going to anyone it’ll be Granger.”

But it didn’t. At the end of the lesson Harry Potter received the Felix Felices and Draco’s mood was not improved as they packed up their belongings.

“Nice to meet you Eleanor, I look forward to annoying Malfoy with you in the future,” Theodore says as they head out of the dungeon classroom, Malfoy still seething behind them.

Eleanor waves goodbye to Theodore, Malfoy falling into step beside her, his face set into a scowl.

“What could be so important about a bit of luck?” She says, her voice dropping so only he can hear her.

“It was going to make it so much easier,” he hissed.

“Make what easier? School? You’ve never had an issue with-. Oh. You mentioned something in a letter at the end of the holidays about some task you were worried about.” Malfoy says nothing beside her. “Draco, did he give you a mission for here at Hogwarts?”

“It doesn’t matter. I’ll see you tomorrow in class,” Draco says flatly before stalking ahead leaving behind Eleanor puzzling over what exactly Voldemort would want with Hogwarts that Draco could give him.


	5. Five

When her first alchemy lesson arrived the next day Eleanor had come up with a number of ideas for what Voldemort would possibly want at Hogwarts from Draco - each of them she dismissed as soon as she thought of them, none of them seemed plausible. 

The alchemy classroom is down in the dungeons, a hallway across from the potions classroom so Draco and Eleanor are the first two to arrive, waiting just outside the door for Professor Slughorn and whoever else might have been able to take the class.

“So, does he want you to find something? A book or some artifact?” Eleanor asks, leaning against the wall to try and appear more casual as she probed for answers.

“What?” Draco says, his face screwing up in confusion for just a moment.

“You know. Him. Look, I know that we’re only new friends and all but I’m not stupid. Everyone knows your family’s allegiances and I have already made it perfectly clear to you that I don’t care. So long as you’re my friend none of that matters so just tell me, what is it you have to do that’s got you so highly strung?”

Draco shifts uncomfortably but for a split second he looks about to say something when two Ravenclaws round the corner to join them outside the classroom. Eleanor smiles lightly in greeting to the others and she thinks she might recognise one of them from the DA meetings last year but both their names escape her at the moment and a tense silence settles in the air.

Surprisingly Draco is the first to break it, a small huff of a laugh escaping him as he glances towards Eleanor. 

“Aren’t you a Hufflepuff? Expert at being friendly and kind? You’re the most awkward looking one of us all right now.”

“Oh shut it Draco, else I’ll show you just how friendly a Hufflepuff can be.” Eleanor hisses, just as the door of the classroom opens to reveal a cheery looking professor Slughorn. Both of the Ravenclaws slip into the classroom as fast as they possibly can, Eleanor and Draco following closely behind.

As they take their seats Slughorn begins the lesson, his voice ringing out into the mostly empty room. “Alchemy is quite a particular branch of magic with the goal of transmutation. For wizards and witches who know what they’re doing there is the goal of attempting to transform common metals into silver and gold, however since everyone here has no background in alchemy we will be spending many of the coming weeks learning of the theory behind this beginning with the structure and properties of the four basic elements.”

Beside Eleanor, Draco hangs off of Slughorn’s every word and within minutes the four of them have their textbooks out jotting down note after note - the only noise in the room is the scratching of quills on paper. Despite the mundane task of copying information Eleanor can’t keep a grin off her face - this is it, the class she had worked so hard to get into and here she was writing notes for it and absorbing as much information as she can.

A little over halfway through the class Slughorn stops everyone from writing and takes a seat in a comfortable looking green chair in front of us, inviting us all to sit a little closer in a circle. Tentatively Eleanor joins the little circle, the two Ravenclaws doing nothing more but smile lightly in her direction before whispering to one another in hushed voices.

Draco is the last to join the group, a scowl plastered on his face towards the other two, gladly taking up his seat away from them, Eleanor a buffer between them.

Meanwhile Slughorn smiles serenely in his chair, completely unaware of the tense atmosphere obviously caused by the presence of Draco - a bully to most and a Slytherin.

“Now,” Slughorn says when we’re all settled in front of him, “Since this is such a small class and alchemy can be such a demanding craft to learn, at the end of lessons we’ll be coming together to discuss anything we’ve learnt and any questions we have. So, can someone begin with the four basic elements and some of their magical properties?”

It doesn’t take much prompting for conversation to begin, both the Ravenclaws live up to their reputation and list off several different properties and when Slughorn prompts them all with further questions Eleanor finds herself speaking up to answer, the three of them discussing amongst themselves the intricacies of some of the more complicated questions. The only person to stay silent is Draco who merely watches on, a disinterested look on his face only deigning to respond when Slughorn specifically directs a question to him.

When the lesson is over Draco is the first out of the room, not giving Eleanor the chance to start questioning him again. Instead of attempting to catch up Eleanor turns towards the Great Hall in search of some food and company.

Inside the Hall she finds Michi sitting by the Hufflepuff table picking at food and waving her over.

“What are you doing over here?” Eleanor asks when she reaches Michi.

“Looking for you, I wanted to ask how your first alchemy lesson went and I could use the company.”

Plucking up some food to eat Eleanor finds Cynthia sitting further along the table and gestures to Michi, “Come on then. Let’s go sit with Cyn and I’ll tell you all about it. And then you can tell me about how you’re settling in here.”

Together they sit across from Cynthia who has just finished telling an inquisitive Hufflepuff when she’ll hold tryouts for the Quidditch team.

“So alchemy was brilliant,” Eleanor began, addressing Cyn and Michi. “We haven’t started anything practical but the theory we did today was really interesting and the others in the class are quite nice, well, to me at least. There’s a bit of tension there between Draco and the other two but maybe that’ll ease after a bit.”

“Doubt it,” Cynthia snorts picking at the food on her plate.

Ignoring the comment Eleanor turns more to face Michi, “So your turn. How are you finding Hogwarts?”

“It’s not bad, the Ravenclaws are nice if a little snobbish and the classes are alright. I do find the whole house separation and the resulting rivalry between them all interesting. Especially watching the fights that unfold between the Gryffindors and Slytherins.”

“Why would you enjoy watching fights, they’re childish and stupid,” Cynthia interjects, staring at Michi.

Unperturbed Michi shrugs and shoots Cyn a sly smile, “I love drama.”

The answer is apparently not the right one and Cynthia, with one pointed scowl at Michi stands from the table speaking only to Eleanor.

“I have quidditch tryouts to sort out and a tonne of homework already. I’ll see you in the Common later okay?”

Waiting only long enough for Eleanor to nod she turns swiftly on her heel and breezes out of the Great Hall.

When she is out of sight Michi smirks again, this time at Eleanor reaching across the table to pluck the last piece of fruit off of Cyn’s plate. “I don’t think she likes me.”


	6. Six

It took no time at all to settle back into the routine of classes and homework for Eleanor and the others. Though Cynthia had yet to warm up to Michi, Susan had no qualms with getting to know her better.

In the second week of being back at Hogwarts, Eleanor found the two of them already whispering between one another as they watched from the stands as Cynthia fulfilled her first duty as Hufflepuff’s Quidditch Captain; tryouts.

With a smile to herself at seeing Susan so animated after her week of solemn silence, Eleanor turns her attention back to the task at hand, lifting her camera to snap another picture of Cynthia yelling out instructions from her broom high above the ground.

“So did you get invited to this dinner of Slughorn’s?” Michi asks the two of them when Eleanor returns to her seat, waiting for another good picture to present itself.

“No,” Susan says, “El did though didn’t you?”

“Oh don’t remind me. If it’s anything like that lunch on the train I don’t want to go. Why though? Did you get invited Michi?”

“Thankfully no, I just heard some girls in my common room talking about it. And I’ve also heard that Draco didn’t get an invite either, much to his disappointment.”

“Hmm, I guess Slughorn doesn’t want to be associated with someone who’s family is - well,” Eleanor trailed off, throwing a silent glance to Susan to see if she had picked up where the conversation had been heading.

“Please, I’m not some fragile doll who’s going to fall apart when someone mentions death eaters. I know I’ve been a little distant since what happened, but you don’t have to treat me so gently.” Susan says. “Personally I feel a little sorry for Malfoy, sure he’s a spoilt princess and we all know Potter hates his guts, but I wonder sometimes how stressful it must be - living with a family like that. Having such little choice about where your loyalties have to be.”

“I’m sorry Susan, I didn’t mean to insinuate you were fragile. I just thought, after everything, you’d hate Malfoy and wouldn’t want to hear about any of that.” 

“I don’t hate him. I hate what his family stands for, but he can’t do anything to change that and I acknowledge that. Besides, you’ve apparently struck up a friendship with him if those gossipy bitches in Gryffindor can be believed.”

“Cynthia thinks I should keep that quiet, she wants me to be careful about what other people will say. Apparently it’s too late for that now though, I wonder if Lavender and Pavarti found out before or after Dumbledore did.” Laughs Eleanor, standing up from her seat to take another shot of one of the hopeful tryouts making a pass with the Quaffle. 

“Dumbledore spoke to you about befriending Malfoy?” Michi asks, a frown lining her face.

“Yeah, just before I arrived at your house. I asked him if he was going to warn me off and instead he just said that if I was going to go down that path I should learn to protect my thoughts and my friends and stuff.”

“Your thoughts? What by watching what you say around Malfoy?” Susan asks.

“I don’t know, I don’t believe that’s what he meant but I didn’t even think there was a way for a wizard to get into your head unless it’s a potion like Verituserum or-”

“Legilimens,” Michi chirps beside them.

“Bless you,” Susan says.

“No, I’m serious. Legilimency is the art of entering a person’s mind. Seeing all their thoughts and memories and stuff, I knew a boy at Mahoutokoro who was born a natural legilimens, but I think I’ve read before that some wizards can teach it to themselves.”

“That doesn’t help with trying to protect my thoughts though.” 

“No, but if you know what you’re supposed to be protecting them from it might help. I’ll see if I can find some more information on it in the library later, and I can write a letter to my friend asking if he knows anything about it all.”

_________

“That was exhausting,” Cynthia groans later in the afternoon as she takes a seat by the fire in the Hufflepuff common room. Michi having left to study with a few Ravenclaws at Eleanor’s encouragement.

“They seem to be a fairly solid team, who knows? Hufflepuff could take home the Quidditch cup this year,” Ernie Macmillan says, his voice full of the usual self importance.

“I certainly plan on it,” Cynthia says, already scribbling down notes and formation ideas for practice.

“Did you get some good pictures out of it El?”

“Yeah a few, I’ll develop them on the weekend once I get all this homework done. Second week in and I’ve already got so much to do.”

“I suppose that’s what happens when you set your heart on becoming a healer,” Susan smirks from her own seat. “By the way shouldn’t you two be getting ready for that dinner of Slughorn’s?”

“I’m so not going to that,” Eleanor says.

“Oh come on,” Pouts Cynthia, surprising Eleanor, “It might be fun. Everything’s always the same around here, class, practice, homework. Who knows, these fancy dinners might be fun. I wrote to my dad about Slughorn and apparently he helped dad a lot with strengthening the connections that got him started in his quidditch career. Getting on his good side can’t hurt.”

Without waiting for Eleanor’s protests Cynthia is pulling her from her seat and helping her get ready. When they finally make their way out of the dorms, Eleanor glances back to Susan for one last chance of escape but her friend simply shrugs, barely able to contain her humoured smirk as Cynthia drags her from the room.


	7. Seven

The next morning Eleanor grudgingly made her way into the common room where a too perky Susan greeted her with a warm mug of hot chocolate. There was no one else about - the only other students crazy enough to be awake this early down at the Quidditch pitch training under Cynthia’s watchful eye.

“So, how was it last night? The infamous ‘Slug-Club’ meeting?” Susan says, an overly cheerful smirk on her face.

“Ugh, if I never have to go to another one it will still be too soon.” Eleanor says, throwing herself down onto the lounge beside Susan nearly upending her drink in the process.

“That bad?”

“It was awful.” She says, pouting a little before facing Susan. “Well, not awful but tedious and boring. Slughorn was clearly expecting Harry Potter to turn up but he was a no show.”

“Yeah I heard he had detention with Professor Snape.”

“Lucky for him. Meanwhile I was sat between Cynthia who spent all night gossiping with Ginny Weasley about her newest boy, and Hermione Granger who has taken it upon herself to inform me that my choices in who I decide to associate with should be more carefully considered.”

Susan sits up straighter laughing once, “She said that?”

“Yup, apparently when I sat with Draco and Theodore Nott in potions I really worried her - so she decided she had to make sure I knew exactly what they’re like and why I should stop talking to them immediately.”

“What did you tell her?”

“Well - I thanked her for sharing her opinion and then informed her that I was perfectly aware of their reputations and that I was rather looking forward to spending even more time with them.”

“I bet she wasn’t too happy with that?” 

“No, in fact she decided she’d rather force her way through a conversation with that thick-head McLaggen than talk with me anymore”

“Any plans for today?” Eleanor asks, eager for a change of subject as they were joined by some sleepy third years who had woken early in anticipation of their first trip to Hogsmeade.

“Not many, probably just spend most of the day wandering around the shops, lunch that sort of thing. I told Michi to meet us at the entrance hall after breakfast and we’d walk down together.”

“You like her then?”

“Yeah, she’s interesting. I know Cyn isn’t her biggest fan but I think it’s just her being wary - Cyn’s always so open about everything whereas Michi seems so mysterious and like she has a dozen secrets at all times and Cyn doesn’t like that about people.”

“I guess you’re right,” Eleanor sighs and the two of them talk a little longer about how their classes are going while they wait for Cynthia to return from training and to head upstairs for breakfast.

_____

After a short breakfast in the Hall, the three girls met with Michi and, after spending a long time in line while Filch checked everybody who had permission to leave off a list, probing them with a secrecy sensor, began the walk down to Hogsmeade.

“Do you remember our third year when we finally got to go to Hogsmeade?” Cynthia sighs, watching the younger students as they passed by, bent against the cold wind their scarves wrapped tightly around their faces.

“You mean the year that we were all walking around in groups fearful of the escaped madman from Azkaban and who you then spent a Christmas with last year because our legal system sucks and he was actually entirely innocent and related to none other than Harry Potter?” Susan asks, a pointed look on her face. “How on earth could we forget?”

“I’m going to pretend I understood any of that,” Michi laughs, looping her arms with Eleanor and Susan, when no one says anything else, Cynthia and Eleanor sharing a look as the memories of the end of last year are brought to the surface.

Hogsmeade is already bustling with activity when they arrive, the shops filled with students eager to spend their money and the girls quickly join them, taking the time to show Michi around the entire town and giving her time to browse every shelf of every shop. Not everything about the tour is happy though when they pass Zonko’s joke shop to see it boarded up. They spend a particularly long time in Honeydukes, all of them recommending their favourite sweets to buy and when they leave their arms are brimming with bags of sweets that would doubtless give Filch a fit if he saw them bringing them back.

“It must be lunch time,” announces Cynthia as they emerge from the warmth of Honeydukes. She and Susan share a smile and a nod before turning to the others and adding, “Let’s go get some food at the Three Broomsticks, we haven’t showed Michi there yet.”

Just as they round the corner to the Three Broomsticks Eleanor spots Harry yelling about something and arguing with an oddly familiar woman.

“Hey, Cyn doesn’t she look like someone we know?”

Beside her Cynthia straightens to get a proper look. “Yeah, it’s Tonks. You remember, she was there - last year. At the Ministry.”

“Oh-”

“She must be one of the Aurors assigned to patrol Hogwarts and the town, you know, the added security measures?”

Tonks and Harry finish their exchange, neither of them looking very pleased and, when they’ve cleared out of the doorway the girls continue making their way forward. 

“Oh, I should probably warn you El,” says Susan from behind her as she jostles Eleanor to the front of their group, “We wanted to do a little something for your birthday since it’s next week and we won’t really be able to do much to celebrate up at the castle.”

“What-”

With a final shove Eleanor enters the Three Broomsticks where a small crowd is gathered of students who yell out Happy Birthday when she comes into sight. All the students who had helped with the Hufflepost last year, several members of the DA and the lone Theodore Nott were gathered in the warm room chattering amongst themselves as Eleanor was given birthday wishes one by one.

“What on earth?” She asks Cynthia in a spare moment when everyone is busy ordering food and drinks. 

“It was Susan and Michi’s idea, we normally celebrate with you just us two in the Common Room but Michi pointed out she wanted to be there and Susan asked around a bit and found some others who wanted to say Happy Birthday so we thought that if we did something at Hogsmeade then no one would have to miss out.”

“Aww thanks guys,” Eleanor says, hugging Michi, Susan and Cynthia.

“Can I ask something though?” Cynthia says, looking at Susan and Michi, “Who invited the random?” She points towards Theodore Nott who smiled charmingly from his spot near the edge of the crowd, waiting a beat before making his way towards Eleanor.

“I did,” Michi says, getting a barely disguised scowl from Cynthia. “I ran into him and Malfoy when I came down for breakfast and invited them, Malfoy more than him but I said he was welcome to tag along. The more the merrier right?”

Theodore arrived in front of the girls, smiling broadly at the scowling Cynthia before turning to Eleanor. “Happy birthday Hufflepuff.” From seemingly nowhere he produces extra large sugar quills from Honeydukes and hands them to Eleanor. “I’d have gotten an actual gift but I was only told about this a few hours ago.”

“Honestly, you didn’t have to get me anything, and I love sugar quills so it’s a great gift. Thanks Theodore. Though I’m not quite sure why you decided to come, especially without Malfoy.”

Theodore waves off the thanks with a grin, “Malfoy was going to tag along but he’s currently in a detention right now with McGonagall - something about Transfiguration homework. I figure he’s looking for an excuse to get to spend more time with you again but he really could do that without angering the scariest professor that this school.”

“McGonagall scares you?” Susan laughs, joining the conversation.

“She doesn’t scare you? Woman literally shapeshifts, and not to mention her glare. You know, the one she gives you over the top of her glasses and you just know you’re in the wrong.”

They spend a little longer celebrating in the Three Broomsticks until several students excused themselves, needing to get back to the castle to work on assignments they had due. Eleanor remembered her own essays waiting to be written and agreed to end the gathering, bundling up before heading into the cold.

Michi and Susan had wanted to stay a little longer so Eleanor, Cynthia and Theodore made their way back to the castle together, Cynthia and Theodore doing their best to civilly ignore the other.

They had just rounded a corner in the lane when, in front of them they saw one of the Gryffindor’s floating above the ground as an earsplitting shriek escaped her.

“Merlin’s pants. That’s Katie Bell,” mutters Cynthia before rushing to the scene where another Gryffindor and Harry, Ron and Hermione stood.

When they reached out to touch her Katie fell back to the ground, writhing and screaming and Eleanor and Theodore took off to catch up with the group.

“What happened?” Eleanor asks, just as Harry runs off to get help, leaving them with the screaming Katie Bell.

“Dunno, just heard them arguing and then out of nowhere she was in the air and screaming,” Ron answered while Hermione and Cynthia did their best to comfort the other Gryffindor girl.

“It looks like she’s been cursed,” whispers Theodore from behind Eleanor, his face pale, a strange, puzzled expression settling on it. “Shit,” he whispers again before straightening up, “Look sorry Eleanor but I’ve got to get back to Hogwarts. I’ll see you around.”

Eleanor didn’t say anything to stop him, knowing a crowd of people wouldn’t help matters, especially when everyone else gathered hated him almost as much as Malfoy. Moments later, Harry and Hagrid appear. The groundskeeper looks at Katie for a few seconds before wordlessly scooping her up and sprinting back in the direction of the castle.

With Katie gone the others get the girl, Leanne to explain what had happened about how they had argued over some package Katie had collected in Hogsmeade, the contents of which, an opal necklace now lay on the snowy ground. Eleanor had been staring fixedly at it throughout Leanne’s story and now she watched as Harry wrapped it up in his scarf to take back to the castle. 

Together Eleanor and Cynthia walk with Hermione and Leanne to Hogwarts, as they comfort the sniffling Leanne. Eleanor, feeling unable to contribute to this, hung back and listened silently to Harry and Ron’s conversation. 

“Didn’t that girl say Katie got it from the girls bathroom?”

“She said she came back from the bathroom with it, she didn’t necessarily get it from the bathroom itself.”

Anything else the boys were going to say was cut off by the appearance of Professor McGonagall running out of the castle to meet them. Within moments she had sent Filch off with the cursed necklace for Professor Snape and had herded the rest of them inside to hear Leanne’s story again, stopping when Leanne broke down in tears unable to continue.

“Miss Wicks could you please escort Leanne to Madame Pomfrey and see to it she has something for her shock,” McGonagall said, her voice kinder than she’d ever heard before she became stern again turning back to the others, “The rest of you I still want to talk to.”

Out of the room with Leanne the two made their way silently to the Hospital Wing and despite herself, Eleanor found herself thinking of only one thing. McGonagall really was the scariest Professor here.


	8. Eight

When Eleanor had finally made it back to the common room later that afternoon she found Cynthia already filling Susan in on what had happened. 

“And then Harry got into this argument with Professor McGonagall because he kept telling her that Malfoy had done it but she just wouldn’t hear it.”

“So Malfoy cursed Katie Bell? Why?”

“Well-”

“Malfoy didn’t curse anyone, he wasn’t in Hogsmeade Cynthia,” Eleanor snaps as she joins the two of them.

“Well Harry reckons he probably got one of his friends to do it for him. Not like Malfoy to do his own dirty work. Hey maybe that’s why Nott was there today, your party must’ve been a convenient excuse to-.”

“Can you please stop accusing my friends of something when you have no proof they were even involved.”

“Who else is gonna go around and curse Gryffindors?” Cynthia asks shrilly.

“You’ve no idea it was intended for a Gryffindor, you know the same as me which is the same as Harry. Nothing. Everything you or he says is just speculation based on bias and hatred.”

“Well I believe Harry’s speculation. Malfoy’s been acting shifty since the term started and I have no doubt in my mind that this was him. You’re just too blind and smitten with the bad boy to see it.”

The last words are dripping with venom and Eleanor feels as if she’s been slapped in the face while Cynthia continues to glower on the couch.

“I’m getting some air,” hisses Eleanor before storming out of the common room and into the corridor beyond. With no destination in mind she wanders aimlessly around the lower passages, keeping to the ones where no other students can bother her. The silent empty passages grow fewer and fewer however as students make their way back from Hogsmeade and then loiter the halls before dinner.

Forced to make her way upstairs to escape the hubbub Eleanor makes her way towards the library, knowing no other students would be there and that the librarian Madam Pince would be out for her own dinner as always at this time.

When she enters the library she welcomes the silence that finally fills the air and she’s sure to double check for any straggling students but she finds no one.

“Finally,” she sighs, automatically heading to the spot where she and Draco had sat last year during their sessions, keen for the warmth of the nearby fire and picking up a few books along the way that caught her interest.

“Oh.”

Eleanor had just rounded the shelves to her target spot when she noticed him, hunched over in his seat, chin resting on his hand staring blankly at the table in front of him. Dark circles line his eyes which are red and puffy and his pale blond hair sticking out in all directions.

“Draco?”

He doesn’t seem to notice that she is there or that she’s spoken for a moment but as she continues to stand there his eyes appear to return to focus and he glances up at her, doing his best to straighten his appearance and plaster a pained looking grin on his face.

“Eleanor. Is this meeting chance or have you taken up stalking in your spare time?” He’s doing his best to appear as nonchalant as always but the sadness is still there in his eyes staring back at her.

“Only by chance you idiot. I just needed a quiet spot to hide for a bit. Cyn and I had a fight.” Eleanor says softly, sitting down lightly in the chair opposite him.

“Well you picked a good spot, you’ll have hours before Madam Pince checks back here.”

“You come here often do you?” 

“Maybe. It’s a good spot for thinking, Merlin knows Theo’s constant chattering isn’t helpful for moments of contemplation.”

“Mmm. He seems to mean well though, Theodore. His chattering yesterday was quite entertaining.”

The crackle of the fire is the only noise in the room as they both sit and watch the other, both of them happy to simply bathe in the silence and one another’s careful gaze. Inside though Eleanor is bursting with questions, the need to know what had made him so distraught and the inner knowledge that she already vaguely understood the answer for that but wasn’t ready to face it. And amongst all these questions and fears all she really wanted to do, had wanted to since she’d rounded the corner to find him, was to take him in her arms and hold him and tell him whatever was happening everything would be okay. She shook that last thought out of her head whenever it cropped back up.

“What was the fight with your friend about?” Draco asks, breaking the silence first.

“Uhm, well you, sort of.”

“Me?”

“She sided with Potter, who’s going around saying you’re the one who cursed Katie Bell. Without a shred of proof mind you.”

His expression becomes a little more guarded but Draco asks another question, his voice a harsh whisper, “Would you care if it had been me who cursed her?”

“No,” Eleanor responds automatically and immediately, Draco unable to hide his surprise. “That is, not in the same way that other people would care. I know that if you were involved with that cursed necklace then it was for a reason that is more complex than Harry or anyone else would believe.”

“You already knew I’d done it hadn’t you?” He asked.

“I guess. But I didn’t like it. That my first thought was the same as Harry’s, and I didn’t want to jump to any conclusions without giving you a chance to explain it all to me first. Unlike him, and not like Cynthia either.”

“Why?”

“Because I know that something is happening with you. I heard about your detention today, for not getting work done. And whenever I see you you’re tired and you look like you have the weight of the world resting on your shoulders.”

The silence returns as Draco studies Eleanor and as she struggles with herself to find the words she needs to say.

“Draco I meant what I said the other day. You are my friend, and I can see you are suffering here. I know this has something to do with you-know-who and I know that deep down you’re only doing what you have to do for yours and your family’s survival. So you can tell me. Tell me what it is he has you doing. I won’t run, you can’t scare me off but sometimes - sometimes a trouble shared is a trouble halved.” She says, using an old muggle phrase she had heard her stepmother say countless times, and immediately regretting it.

Draco continues to say nothing, after a few minutes Eleanor just shrugs and picks up one of the books she had brought with her, flicking through the pages and listening to the sound of the fire crackling and pages turning.

“I have to kill someone.” Draco whispers an hour later when the fire has burnt low and Eleanor has just started on the next book, setting it down when she hears his voice.

“Who?”

“I have to kill Professor Dumbledore.”


	9. Nine

“Hello? Earth to Eleanor? Is anyone in there?”

The greenhouse comes back into focus and Eleanor turns her face away from Harry and his friends to her own, both of whom were covered in scratches but victoriously holding the pods they had each retrieved from the innocent looking stump in front of them.

“Sorry, just sleepy. I guess I didn’t get to sleep till late - homework.” More like trying to come up with a plan to help Draco that doesn’t actually have to involve killing the headmaster of our school but that doesn’t get him and his entire family killed as well.

After Draco had revealed his task to her last night, and the threat to his family should he fail Eleanor had thanked him for trusting her and then swore she would help him find a way to get out of it all - and to help him get by with his classes as well.

She had just been about to ask him about the attempt with Katie Bell when a loud noise announced the approach of Madam Pince and they’d had to creep out of the library and return to their common rooms.

“Are you coming to the dinner tonight?” Cynthia asked brightly, desperately trying to skim over the argument they’d had yesterday.

“Not this one I don’t think Cyn, I feel like since today is officially my birthday I shouldn’t have to endure another Slug Club meeting.”

The conversation remains limited for the rest of the lesson and Susan has to rouse Eleanor to pay attention a dozen more times before the class finishes and they escape out into the cold air to return to the castle for lunch.

“Occlumency,” Michi exclaims in a loud whisper when she scoots into a seat between Susan and Eleanor.

“Excuse me?”

“You know, what Dumbledore said about you protecting your thoughts and all and I told you he was probably referring to something like a legilimens?”

“Yeah I remember, something about you having a friend who was one or something?” Eleanor replies, sitting up straighter and facing Michi.

“Well, occlumency is sort of the opposite of that. It’s having the ability to close off your mind. Secure it, and stop people from being able to get inside your head.”

“Can anybody learn it?”

“Well I mean some people probably find it considerably harder than others but in principal anyone can at least try to learn it.” Despite her assurance Michi’s voice still trails off at the end and Eleanor narrows her eyes, sensing she hadn’t told her something else.

“Where’s the ‘but’?”

“But, without a legilimens to try and get into your mind there’s no way to practice.”

“So, not an option then?”

“Not at the moment it seems. At least you know what he was talking about though,” Michi adds, trying to lesson the disappointment.

“Yeah I guess.”

Eleanor finished her lunch and then parted from the group, descending into the dungeons for Potions. She still hadn’t gotten used to the ease which filled the darkened corridor waiting for class to begin now that Snape was no longer their teacher, nor was she in the mood for any cheerful chatter or a conversation with Hermione Granger who was trying desperately to catch her eye and invite her to join them.

Instead she kept to the back of the group, keeping to herself until the Slytherins rounded the bend and Theodore and Draco joined her.

“Afternoon ‘Puff,” Theodore smiled.

“Puff?”

“It’s his new nickname for you,” Draco muttered, pushing the two of them forward a little to indicate that everyone was entering the classroom.

They took the same seats as last time and within moments the class had fallen into its usual rhythm; Hermione, Harry and Draco locked into concentration - eager not to be outdone by the other, while the rest of the class simply tried not to catch anything on fire.

“You’re not very chatty today,” Theodore says to Eleanor as they begin cutting ingredients for the day’s potion.

“Mmm, just got a lot on my mind is all.”

“Wow, do you know how much like Draco you just sounded?” Theodore laughs, “So what is it? Homework? Friends? Bothersome Slytherins who just won’t leave you in peace?”

“Ha. No none of those. It’s just something that I wanted to look into turned out to be a dead end.”

“You mean the Occlumency?”

“How on earth-? Did Michi talk to you?”

“What? Michiko, no, I just - happen to know a lot about that field of interest. Well legilimency more than occlumency but same thing.”

Eleanor glanced around the classroom to ensure that everyone was busy focusing on their potion and not listening to their conversation before continuing. 

“Are you saying you’re a freaking legilimens?”

“Since the day I was born.”

“Why bother asking what was on my mind then? When you’ve clearly already been combing through it?”

“Calm down. I don’t do it all the time, hearing voices that aren’t your own can be incredibly annoying and I asked because I was trying to make a conversation, and to offer you a chance to tell me yourself.”

“Do any of the Professor’s know?”

“Merlin no. Only people who know are my parents, Malfoy and now, you.”

She’s left speechless, both freaked out at his being able to see her every thought and touched that he had confided in her.

“You want someone to teach you right? How to block someone like me out?”

“Well. Yes.”

“I could help. I mean I don’t know how to get you to block me but, I could ask Draco. I’m pretty sure he’s been taught by his Aunt or something - don’t tell him I told you that. But he might know some useful tricks. And don’t worry, I won’t tell him who it’s for - I see what you mean, he doesn’t need to know who gave you this idea.”

“Thankyou so much Theodore, I owe you big time,” Eleanor says, unable to believe her luck, not only that she had found a solution to her problem so easily, but also that despite being distracted her potion was coming along quite well.

____

“Okay, so how are we doing this?” Eleanor asks a few hours later sitting across from Theodore in an empty classroom in one of the less frequented corridors. The door is locked with enchantments, both Theodore and Eleanor double and triple checking to ensure nobody walks in on them using what could possibly be restricted magic. Neither one was sure if the teachers would mind and they definitely didn’t want to find out.

“Well, I figured I’d just do my thing and try to get into your mind and you just - you know, block me.”

“With magic or, like a mental block.”

“I’ve heard that both work technically. I’m pretty sure people who are just learning tend to use more spells to block or counter attack, but once you get really good you should be able to just shut everything down so there’s nothing there to block me from seeing. If that makes any sense.” Theodore says, rubbing the back of his neck and frowning. “Just try pushing me out I guess, with your mind.”

She shakes her head a little and takes a steadying breath before telling Theodore to begin. 

“Now remember, I’m going to make it pretty obvious at first that I’m looking, you’ll probably see what I see. But in reality a skilled legilimens would be able to do so with you barely noticing so eventually you’ll have to learn how to even know when to use occlumency.”

Without anymore preamble Theodore focuses on Eleanor properly though she can’t tell because the classroom and his face have become blurred and old memories are flashing quickly past her eyes. 

The house is so quiet it’s disturbing me and I feel the pit of guilt gnawing on my stomach that I’ve grown accustomed to feeling every time I display an aptitude for magic, I know it hurts my father that I inherited what he did not. He sits across from me now, the thick parchment letter in his hand another snub that I would attend Hogwarts and any chance he had of ever truly leaving the wizarding world behind him slipping away. 

The girl beside me won’t stop chattering and her hair is the cutest shade of soft pink and I think she might just be my new best friend when she tells off the horrid girl whose name escapes me (I think it’s Penelope, or no Petunia maybe? Peony? Oh I don’t know some flower I guess), sending her fuming and embarrassed back to her own carriage. A boy a little older than myself, tall and gangly with a single dimple when he smiles, pokes his head through the door to hand the girl next to me something. (Chocolate, it’s chocolate. And ohmygosh she’s offering me some chocolate!! I think I love her).

More memories continue to flash by, the first time she fell off a broom, the time she and Cynthia had laughed so much they’d almost turned blue because of Susan’s crush on that fool Lockhart, going to the Yule Ball and spending the entire night dancing with Cyn and Susan. Another memory begins, but this one is different, so incredibly sombre compared to the others that Eleanor is caught off-guard momentarily.

The bright sun filling the room feels wrong, like a poorly timed joke that leaves no one feeling cheery. Beside me on our beds in the common room Cynthia is finally crying - she hadn’t done that the funeral, not like most of the other people there. At the funeral she had simply stood straight and stared ahead, with no life in her eyes, no sign that she was in her mind at all. But now she was crying, not the pretty kind where tears slide poignantly down your cheeks and your lower lip trembles at keeping it in. No. This is ugly crying, real crying. Her cheeks are glossy with water, eyes are red and puffy, there’s snot nearly in her mouth and these awful wracking sobs and screams filling the room that leaves her shuddering. 

‘This is private. Too private.’ Eleanor thinks to herself, ‘Cynthia wouldn’t like this. Wouldn’t want anyone to see this.’ She tries to push the memory away, to convince herself to close her eyes on it. ‘Stop, this needs to stop now. Stop!’

The common room and Cynthia are suddenly wrenched away and the classroom comes back into view, as does Theodore’s startled face and Eleanor can see her wand raised in front of her, a jet of light having hit Theo and sending him hurtling back off the table he’d been perched on to land roughly onto the ground.

“I’m sorry, so sorry,” she says, leaping to her feet to help him up.

“No that was good, it took a bit but you managed to push me out and we knew you’d probably use spells to block at first.” Theodore replies, brushing himself off a little.

“I still feel bad for hurting you.”

He waves her off, “Don’t worry about it Puff. No harm done.”

“Are we going to go again?”

“In a minute, give us both some time to get in the right mindset again.”

Resuming her spot in front of Theo, she picks at the desk beneath her, still reliving one of the worst memories of her life at Hogwarts.

“I’m sorry about that by the way,” Theo murmurs, “Side affect of the process I guess, seeing all those private moments. I swear anything I see during this practice stays between you and me. Promise.”

El nods a quiet thankyou, waiting a moment more before straightening up with a determined grin. “I’m not giving you the chance to see anything private again, so no need to make that promise.”


	10. Ten

The next morning, students make their way down through the frost coated grass buzzing with excitement for the first quidditch match of the year.

“What do you think the odds are for Gryffindor kicking Slytherin ass today?” Susan asks Cynthia as they approach the stairs that will take them up to the stands.

“Not too sure, there’s several new players this year what with George and Fred gone and Katie off sick, and I’ve never seen Dean play so who knows?”

“Although,” Cynthia adds, looking now to Eleanor, “Malfoy’s off sick today apparently and won’t be playing. Might make it easier for Gryffindor to win. Then again, the way he plays maybe their team will play better.”

Ignoring Cynthia’s snub about quidditch skills, Eleanor stops just below the steps, letting other students swarm past her as she pulls Cynthia aside.

“What do you mean he’s not playing today?”

“I heard he’s got Harper playing for him instead.”

“I haven’t heard about Draco being sick.”

“Oh and you two are so close nowadays. I don’t know, maybe I heard wrong, maybe he’s not sick. Maybe he just couldn’t care less. I don’t care so I’m going up now to watch the game.”

Eleanor watches Cynthia retreat up into the stands, half wishing she would just shrug it off and follow her and let things be easy between them. But the other half has a dozen scenarios running through her mind, of all the things Draco could be up to trying to fulfil that mad demand of you-know-whos’.

‘Besides,’ she thinks to herself as she turns and begins walking back up towards the castle, ‘maybe I’ll get the chance to actually talk about the attempt he’s already made and we can start working on a solution to all of this chaos.’

The corridors of the castle are eerily silent as Eleanor strolls through them with nothing but the occasional ghost gliding past and paying her no heed. Somewhere on an upper floor of the castle she can just make out the sound of Peeves getting up to no good. 

She has no idea how she’s going to get into the Slytherin common room but figures it’s a good start to head there at least and after that? She doesn’t know.

Turning down a corridor that she hopes will lead to the common room she suddenly finds that there will be no need to stake out the common room door. Draco already stands right in front of her, looking tired and withdrawn in thought but not sick.

“Eleanor? What are you doing down here?”

“Looking for you. We should talk.”

“About what?” Draco says, stalking past Eleanor who follows closely behind.

“About what?! How about that kinda freaking huge bombshell you dropped the other night and the fact that Katie Bell is lying in St Mungo’s because you tried to have her deliver a cursed necklace to Albus Dumbledore!”

“If you’re so bothered by it why haven’t you just gone to him and told him what you know? That’s what he wants right? That’s why he insisted on being the one to deliver you to your Uncle’s house, to recruit you to do his work right? He allowed you to befriend me so that when he needed it he would have someone to tell him what was going on in the Malfoy’s. What his plans are.”

“Draco, I’m not going to tell Dumbledore anything. What good would that do? You and your family would end up being punished by both sides and you-know-who would just enact another plan to get what he wants done. I’m bothered by the fact that you’re getting detentions for not doing homework, ditching quidditch matches and walking around all the time like you’re half asleep. This kind of stress isn’t healthy to keep bottled up.”

“You really want to help me?” He asks, as though the idea is too wild for him to comprehend. “Even though I tried to kill him, and nearly did kill that girl - kill Katie, you still want to help me?”

“Yes. Because that is what friends do for each other. And because I know you do it out of necessity, not choice.”

He pauses momentarily, looking back at Eleanor before grabbing her by the wrist and pulling her hurriedly in another direction. When he knows she’s keeping up he lets go but doesn’t slow down, navigating his way effortlessly up the moving staircases and using shortcuts wherever possible.

He doesn’t stop until they’re standing on what must be the seventh floor, in an empty hallway an old tapestry hanging on the wall that Eleanor has definitely seen before.

“Hold on. This is where-”

“The Room of Requirement is, yeah. Just give me a second.”

He paces back and forth in front of the wall where only last year Eleanor and dozens of others had done the same thing for DA meetings. A few seconds later the door has fully appeared and Draco again takes Eleanor by the hand, with care this time as though he’s almost worried about scaring her off.

Inside, the Room of Requirement is nothing like what was used last year. This room is cluttered, literal stacks of rubbish and forgotten odds and ends rise up like strange towers all throughout, everywhere Eleanor looks there’s a different pile. 

“What?” 

“This way.” He leads her through the room with a purpose, navigating skillfully amongst the junk until they come across a sort of clearing. Well, not clearing so much as a spot with a bit less junk scattered about. In the centre of it stands a large, shabby black cabinet.

“What is that?”

“A vanishing cabinet,” mutters Draco, “A broken one. I’ve been trying to fix it.”

“Why? What does this have to do with you-know-who?”

“Everything. This is it Eleanor this is my plan. Fix the damn thing to let the others in and use it as a distraction to get close to - him.”

“Then, why send that cursed necklace?” 

“Because I don’t actually know how to fix the cupboard, and I remembered seeing that necklace and thought it’d be an easier way. I never meant for anyone else to touch it, but what am I supposed to do? He will kill me, kill my mother and my father. We’re lucky he’s even still alive after he failed last year.” The last words come out choked and despite himself there are tears pooling in the corners of his eyes.

“I know you want to help me. To find a way around what I’ve been told to do and you’re welcome to try and find one. But I have to do this, if I find a way to kill him I have to. I have no choice.”

“I know.” Eleanor whispers, tightening her grip on his hand. 

“You don’t have to stay, you know. You might not tell Dumbledore, but you don’t have to put yourself in the difficult situation of hanging out with me anymore.”

“Why on earth wouldn’t I?”

“Because what I’m doing. It’s awful. And dangerous, if I fail and you knew and people find out you’ll be in just as much trouble as me and if I somehow succeed then you’ll be friends with the boy who killed Dumbledore, and you’ll be forced into the world of death eaters and you-know-who.”

“We already live in a world of death eaters and you-know-who Draco. I don’t care how dangerous or scary it gets, no one should go through it alone.”

Despite the seriousness of the conversation Draco sniggers, “Wow. You know most of the time I forget what you are and then you go and say something like that and it becomes the most obvious thing in the world.”

“What?”

“That you’re a Hufflepuff, kind and loyal to a damn fault.”

They laugh together in the room of junk, the broken vanishing cabinet between them and the cheers of a triumphant quidditch team heard vaguely in the background signalling the return of the students.

“We should go,” Draco says, beginning to lead the way back out. 

‘Go on. Do it. You won’t get a better chance.’ The thoughts rise in Eleanor’s head, as she follows behind staring at the back of his platinum blonde hair watching the way he walks a little lighter than before. 

“Draco.” She says as they approach the door, “Did you want to come with me to Slughorn’s Christmas Party?”


	11. Eleven

“Empty your mind, lock down your emotions. Come on Eleanor you did so well with that last one.” Theo scolds Eleanor as she watches the memories he has managed to see fade out of her sight.

“I’m trying. It’s just getting harder to tell when you’re actually looking into my head, you know. I don’t always know when to shut it all down.”

“That’s the point. You know I’m a legilimens, you should be on high alert at all times around me because you’ll never normally know when I’m looking. That goes for whenever you’re around anyone who could even remotely possess the ability to see your thoughts and use them against you.”

“Nowadays that could be just about anyone. What am I supposed to do just walk around with my emotions and thoughts constantly shut away?” Eleanor growls, rubbing at her temple where a headache has begun to grow.

“Pretty much yeah, Draco does constantly. I barely ever get the chance to see his thoughts. Though, that’s only begun recently, used to be he never cared what I’d see.”

“I don’t think it’s you he’s shielding them from.”

“Yeah I don’t really think so either, but despite being a born legilimens I rather fail at protecting my own thoughts so I try to avoid thinking about it. Just in case that someone’s watching.”

A shiver runs down Eleanor’s spine as she realises the implications of their conversation, the way in which they were almost referring to someone like Dumbledore as the enemy, the person to be feared. 

“Okay, go again.”

She closed her eyes this time and focused on her thoughts, or rather, the lack of them. Everything she had just felt, the fear and awe and anxiety she let it go. Trying to visualise each of her emotions she tucked them all away into a box and shoved it aside.

After she was done with that she moved onto her memories, focusing on nothing but the feeling of being in the present right now. Breathe in. Breathe out. In. Out. There, what was that? A small, almost unnoticeable whisper of something seemed to brush up against her mind before she simply pushed it out.

It didn’t go far though, now she’d felt it she continued to sense it like it was lurking just outside her mind, a calm patient breeze looking for an easy way in. And now she knew it was there she was able to keep up a wall of sorts around her mind, weak and feeble as it was, it was start.

“Excellent,” exclaims Theo, leaning back in his chair. “You actually managed to detect me before I got to see anything and you kept me out. Well tried to, I’m sure if I pushed those barriers of yours would have caved instantly but you’ll build those up with time. Draco’s are like, polished marble, completely impregnable.”

“He built his barriers in his mind out of marble?”

“Well, sort of I think people’s barriers sort of just reflect their personality when they’re refined.”

“Right.”

“Anyway, we should probably call it quits there, don’t you have a party to get ready for? Nice dress by the way, Draco’s gonna love it.”

“How’d yo- hey, get out of my head.”

“Haha have fun Eleanor.”

Eleanor leaves Theo returning to the Hufflepuff common room where she finds Cynthia and Susan getting dressed into identical dresses of pink and yellow, starry gauze overlaying the fabric.

“You two look gorgeous,” she says, heading straight for them and ignoring the scowl from another sixth year who clearly wished to have the chance to get dressed up.

“About time you showed up, Susan laid all your stuff out on your bed for you so hurry up and get dressed. I am dying of hunger.”

Sure enough Eleanor finds the crushed velvet dress that she, along with Cyn’s help had chosen a week earlier to wear. The deep, forest green fabric is luxuriously soft and after she’s changed into it Cynthia helps to fix Eleanor’s hair into an elegant style. For just a little bit it feels like when they were getting each other ready for the Yule Ball before every conversation seemed strained and likely to start an argument.

“There, perfect. Now let’s get going before all the good food is gone,” Cynthia says, steering the other two towards the doorway.

“This is kind of fun isn’t it?” Giggles Susan, “Getting all dressed up to go to some exclusive Christmas do, Hogwarts should do more parties and stuff every year.”

“Not that we’d be here much longer to enjoy them,” Cynthia frowns beside her. “Feels weird doesn’t it, being so close to leaving?”

“I’m going to miss it, being around everyone and the feasts and stuff. Though, there are a few Professors I will definitely not miss. Or the homework for that matter.” 

“I bet life will be so boring after being here though, every year never failed to disappoint. Basilisks in the walls,” Sighs Cynthia.

“Dementors and escaped convicts, a prestigious tournament,” Susan adds on in a singsong voice.

“Not to mention that pink hag last year.” Eleanor adds on at the end. “I do believe we all owe the Centaurs a debt of thanks.”

“Eleanor, is that Malfoy? Waiting there by the stairs?” Susan suddenly asks, ending the previous conversation as she points out his pale figure dressed in a black suit leaning against the rail of the staircase.

“Yeah, guess it is. I mean I did invite him after all.”

“You what?” Cynthia asks, despair in her voice, “He’ll ruin the whole night.”

“Oh shut up, you’ll barely notice he’s there once you bury your face in the food you’ve been going on about all evening.” Without a backwards look Eleanor stalks away from Cynthia and Susan, determined to avoid any negativity for the night.

“Don’t you look dapper?” She says when she reaches Draco, taking the arm that he offers her.

“I always look this good,” he replies, eyes taking in her own outfit, “You, are stunning. I really do mean it when I say green is your colour.”

“Pity I don’t get more chances to wear it then,” Eleanor sighs, doing her best to remain nonchalant and teasing even though inside she is screaming and flustered from the compliment.

They’re approaching Slughorn’s office and already Eleanor can hear music and laughter drifting out. Upon entering she takes a moment to awe at the decorations of Emerald and Crimson draped from the ceiling, the room is bathed in a red light and everywhere there are people talking and dancing and eating, a few house elves navigating their way through the crowd bearing heavy silver trays of food.

Beside her Draco looks decidedly less comfortable than he had been a minute ago, and his gaze lingers on someone in the crowd.

“We don’t have to stay long if you don’t want, parties aren’t everybody’s thing-”

“Dance with me,” interrupts Draco, pulling Eleanor over to the other side of the room where several students and other guests have established the dance floor, partnering up and swaying along to the music playing.

“I do hope you’ve improved since the Yule Ball, I remember watching that boy you danced with limping around all night afterwards.”

A blush darkens Eleanor’s face, “No promises.”

They move slowly at first, Eleanor constantly looking down to her feet to ensure no accidents, but the longer they dance the more both of them seem to relax until Eleanor isn’t checking her feet anymore, instead looking straight into the cold grey eyes of Draco.

“You can stop frowning, you know? For just one night you can stop plotting and worrying and just enjoy yourself, have fun.”

“It’s hard to do that when I still haven’t made any progress, I’m still no closer to succeeding than I was at the start of the year.”

“And one night is going to change that?”

“I guess not.”

“Right, so stop frowning and enjoy yourself.” Eleanor sighs, spinning in place before Draco catches her, one hand on her waist and the other reaching up to tuck a strand of hair back into place.

“I always enjoy myself when I’m with you.”

A swarm of butterflies erupts in Eleanor’s stomach and she can feel her cheeks heating. Her body has become hyper aware of the hand that still holds her waist and how it seems to be burning her skin through the dress.

“Eleanor! There you are, Susan and I have been searching the place for you. Have you tried the little cakes yet, they are to die for.” Cynthia materialises from the crowd, latching onto Eleanor’s hand and pulling her towards one of the trays of food.

“I-I’ll just be a minute,” she calls to Draco before rounding on Cynthia, “What did you do that for? We were in the middle of a conversation.”

“I thought you might’ve needed rescuing, he was all up in your face and you looked cornered.” Cyn replies, barely glancing up from the food she was now heaping into Eleanor’s hand. “You’re welcome.”

“Rescuing my ass, look at her. She’s all red and flustered because he was hitting on her and she finally realised how much she’s in love with him. And you ruined it dummy,” Susan scowls, appearing on the other side of Eleanor.

“I am not in love with him,” Eleanor jumps in, struggling to juggle the food in her hands, “And I did not need rescuing.”

“Oh well whatever, he can’t have you to himself all night. Just tell him I’m sorry I guess,” Cynthia sighs, waving off Eleanor’s glare. 

“Where’d he go by the way?” Susan asks, looking around the room, “It’s like he’s just run off.”

“No, I saw him just after I grabbed you, he was being led out by Professor Snape.” Says Cynthia.

“Huh, I might go and see what’s going on, be back in a minute okay?”

“Eleanor,” Cynthia says, grabbing her wrist, “Just, whatever happens with you two, be careful. I don’t want you getting hurt again.”

She’s touched by Cynthia’s worry, a reminder that they are still friends despite Cynthia’s obvious dislike for Malfoy. Which really was understandable when Eleanor actually thought about it.

“Don’t worry, I won’t let that happen.” She heads out of Slughorn’s office, leaving the noise of the party behind and wandering down the empty, darkened corridor. She has no idea where Snape would have taken Draco and she worries that he’s been sent back to his common room when Snape emerges from an empty classroom, catching sight of her.

“Miss Wicks. What are you doing out here?”

“Just looking for Draco, Professor. A friend said she saw you taking him out of the party and I want you to know he wasn’t gatecrashing or anything, I invited him, he’s allowed to be here.”

“You’ve been associating with Mister Malfoy regularly then have you?” Sneers the Professor who now appears to be studying her rather closely.

That’s when she feels it, barely a trace and a lot lighter than Theo ever is but nevertheless it is there, an intrusion into her mind. Panic seizes Eleanor for a brief second as she feels all the memories of Draco confiding in her surfacing. Before anything becomes clear though she throws up a wall around the memories, the strongest one yet. All her emotions, thoughts and feelings she tucks away, earning a severe look from the Professor.

“I see he’s been passing on his new trick then,” he hisses, venom dripping from his voice. Eleanor takes this as a sign that she had managed to stop him from seeing anything important and sags with relief, still straining to block out her thoughts. 

“Maybe you should just talk to me instead of trying to rummage through my mind like your own personal library,” Eleanor retorts.

“I am only trying help, Miss Wicks.”

“Who? Him, or yourself?” She doesn’t know if this is the right thing to say, she’s certainly never spoken to a teacher like this before but she doesn’t wait to find out, turning on her heel and marching back towards the office, nearly running into Harry Potter who has just emerged by the looks of it, preventing Professor Snape from saying anything more. But when she turns to see if he lingers she sees instead that he is long gone, and since she has no idea where Draco has disappeared to, heads back into the party to enjoy the company of Cynthia and Susan as best she can.


End file.
